© the other press Photos by Nick Hogg Culture August 2003 Anime Evolution Convention Nick Hogg OP Game Guy Day One Friday If you were to ask anyone at a convention what is the most important thing for a convention to have, they'd probably give you some response about having their favourite anime play- ing, or some cosplayer (person dressed as an anime character) who actually looks decent dressed as Naga. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make a convention, organization does, and Anime Evolution was seriously lacking in this for its registration. First off it started two hours late, and they only had three comput- ers for checking people’s registration. So it didn’t matter if you were registered and paid or registered and unpaid, the line was a good three-to-four hour wait. And with 1000-plus people waiting to get in, three computers checking registration was nowhere near sufficient. One must ask if anime fans hate themselves. I’m not sure— but a three-hour line seems like masochism to me. Although it did make for some interesting conversations as I got to know the people around me, and I began to seriously doubt my reasoning for going in cosplay. I had hope that at the end of this line there was going to be a truckload of cool stuff, and a dealer’s room that said “all your cash is belong to us.” I think the line wait made my brain deteriorate, because I was in for some huge hunks of disappointment in the form of, wait for it—another hour-long line. Yes, that’s correct, the dealer's room had a line over an hour long, and to make matters worse, everything anime on the schedule was off by some- where between one-to-two hours so you never knew quite what was playing. After waiting around until nearly closing time for the deal- er’s room I managed to cut my wait time down to an even half hour, although the wait wasn't quite worth it. Maybe all the line-waiting had bred some excitement and anticipation for something really cool that I would never find anywhere else, but Anime Evolution shattered my hopes. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but it was mostly shops I know about selling stuff I could gather in a usual weekend. My familiarity with these shops might have been due to the fact that I’ve spent a long time scouring the Lower Mainland for places to buy anime goods. Although the bringing of these shops into a relatively small room saved on gas money, I would have liked to see some American shops to at least spice up the selection of goods. Oddly enough, the two lines and the dealer’s room blew the time right into the evening, which takes us to my Friday high- light, the DSX 2 party. The highly creative and always self promoting shop owner of DSX2, Eddie Sun, who had a pro- jector and import games in hand to entertain all. With his self made T-virus drinks and a wickedly fun Soul caliber 2 tourna- ment, it was a fun experience that made me forget about the lines. With Day One behind me and my plans for day two set, I made all the last minute changes to my cosplay gear, and got that stuff some people refer to as sleep. Day Two Saturday Saturday started off rather well with a general lack of lines, except for the two-to-three hour wait to get into the dealer’s room. To start the day off was a showing of Mobile Suit Gundam Char’s Counter Attack, and in my opinion there is no better way to start your day than with Gundam. After that most people wandered over to the cosplay event, which was rather entertaining, although seriously lacking in skits, but hopefully, next year there will be more. There were, however, a few standout performances and they all ended up winning stuff, so it worked out when you think about it. After a time- ly meal I caught the tail end of the voice actor Q&A, which was extremely entertaining, especially since the infamous Scott McNeil was there. Through the course of questions it slipped that they were working on dubbing Gundam Seed. For those who don’t know, Gundam Seed’ license has not been announced and has only finished airing in Japan less than a month ago. Directly after that was the Bandai Panel hosted by Sees Page 26 hittp://www.otherpress.ca Marketeer and Producer Jerry Chu, who when questioned about Gundam Seed suggested | check the internet in two weeks, versus the usual answers of no comment for similar questions. What does this mean? Hopefully it means a 2004 release of Gundam Seed, with box and exclusive figure. Beyond that wonderful tidbit of information was a 15-minute product trailer outlining new releases with a few surprises, Yukikaze, try actually pronouncing that, looks to be a high-energy anime with beautiful computer animated fighter jet dog fights, and if it actually has a story it’s going to be popular. Then there was the large section of a trailer devoted to Witch Hunter Robin, which made it seem a lot more action packed than it is. As well there was stuff for Gundam Zeta, which is going to be released as one large collector’s box set that will most likely contain an exclusive figure and other Gundam related stuff. The nice thing about this panel was everyone in attendance got a little something in the way of swag, from DVDs down to dot hack not pads. Although the odd thing was the sheer amount of S-cry-ed DVDs that were handed out, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 of these went to lucky fans. Thankfully I was one of those lucky fans who got volume 1 of S-cry-ed. Day Three Sunday Yet again I’m up early in the am to watch a Gundam movie, hell it’s better than coffee any day. After that was the amaz- ingly funny Gundam Wing voice-actor panel containing the voice of Duo; Scott McNeil, the voice of Zechs; Brian Drummond, and Michael Dobson, the man who nearly won the Burning Flesh Award. The Burning Flesh Award is pretty much a joke award for the voice actors who in Gundam series must continually do short death scenes while they are burned alive in Mobile Suits. Voice actors are crazy people, they are not normal—but that’s good, if they were normal that panel probably would have put me to sleep like that other guy at the back of the room who provided a good ten minutes of enter- tainment for everyone in attendance. This was my favorite part of the convention, but it’s the hardest to describe, it was spontaneous humour with a group of people who have unbe- lievable range to their voices. The crowd went though its paces asking various questions, and getting some of the funniest answers and non-answers form the actors. Standout sections of conversation were the talks about doing power-up sequences from Dragon Ball Z and nearly passing out from having to scream for 20 minutes, the story of how Garry Chalk the voice of Optimus Prime in Armada threw up while trying to do a belch on command in the studio, and Scott McNeil’s complaint that he didn’t get to voice any of the pret- ty boys with great hair from Gundam Seed and is only playing characters like Admiral Fatass. But the funniest moment was Scott’s explanation of his first reaction to yaoi fan art, (male/male anime pairing also known as slash) after signing a picture and then looking at it he said, “All I have to say is that Heero Yui was always a perfect gentleman with me.” Next up on the list was the autograph session with the voice actors in attendance, this was done extremely well because only a limited number of people were allowed in the signing room at once allowing people to get to chat a bit with the actors. This was great, because not only did I get my stuff signed but I also got a chance to ask some questions that I didn't have a chance to ask during the Q&A session. This gave me the opportunity to get pictures with Scott McNeil, and to have the cast draw battle damage on a Leo figure, which Scott McNeil took literally and actually wrote the words “battle damage” on it. At the end of the weekend I was tired but came away with a very good experience on the whole and, seeing as this was a first-year convention, | felt it went off rather well despite a few organization problems that should be fixed next year. I must commend the staff at Anime Evolution for their excellent choice of guests, and hopefully next year we can have the entire cast from Gundam Wing, and Gundam Seed as well.